Save our herbaria and herbarium botanists

In the more than 4 decades since I visited my first herbarium, it has become increasingly clear that very few people, amongst them most scientists including biologists and even many botanists, actually know what a herbarium is for! Hardly anyone seems to realise that traditional plant identification has been based upon the characteristics of plants which can be observed on the pressed, dried reference specimens of each species stored in these herbaria. For many, herbaria are unknown, rather quaint places from another age - completely removed from the process of plant identification.